Israel's IDE plans more U.S. desalination plants after California success

[Jroc]

Israeli companies improving the lives of Americans

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's IDE Technologies, which opened this week a billion-dollar desalination plant in California, is helping to plan 10 new facilities throughout the United States, the company's chief executive said on Wednesday.

Together with U.S. partner Poseidon Water, IDE has just completed the country's largest desalination plant, located on the Pacific coast in the city of Carlsbad. It will supply much needed drinking water for 300,000 households, alleviating the area's water shortage.

IDE plans more U.S. desalination plants after California success

 

[waltky]

Progress in desalination for a thirsty world...

Graphene sieve could make seawater drinkable
Tue April 4, 2017 - Researchers in the United Kingdom have developed a graphene-based sieve that can filter salt out of seawater, a development that could provide drinking water to millions of people around the globe.

The applications could be a game-changer in countries where access to safe, clean, drinkable water is severely limited. Graphene -- an ultra-thin sheet of carbon atoms organized in a hexagonal lattice -- was first identified at the University of Manchester in 2002 and has since been hailed as a "wonder material," with scientists racing to develop inexpensive graphene-based barriers for desalination on an industrial scale. Now, the team at Manchester has used a compound of graphene, known as graphene oxide, to create a rigid sieve that could filter out salt using less energy.

Overcoming hurdles

In recent years, there had been some success in water filtration using graphene oxide to sift out other smaller nanoparticles and organic molecules But researchers had struggled to move forward after finding that the membrane's pores would swell up when immersed in water, allowing particles to continue to pass through. Rahul Nair's team at Manchester now claims it has discovered how to control of the expansion and size of the pores.

Writing Monday in the Nature Nanotechnology journal, the team revealed it was able to restrict pore-swelling by coating the material with epoxy resin composite that prevented the sieve from expanding. This means common salt crystals could continue to be filtered out, while leaving behind uncontaminated, clean, drinking water. The discovery is "a significant step forward and will open new possibilities for improving the efficiency of desalination technology," Nair said in a statement from the university. "This is the first clear-cut experiment in this regime. We also demonstrate that there are realistic possibilities to scale up the described approach and mass produce graphene-based membranes with required sieve sizes," he added.

Global implications

Boosting global access to water is critical. By 2025, 14% of the global population will suffer from water scarcity, the United Nations predicts. In addition, climate change is expected to wreak havoc on urban water supplies, with decreased rainfall and rising temperatures expected to fuel demand. Cities have been investing heavily in diversifying their water supplies, including developing new desalination technologies to make seawater potable. But existing, industrial-scale desalination plants can be costly and normally involve one of two methods: distillation through thermal energy, or filtration of salt from water using polymer-based membranes.
These techniques have drawn criticism from environmentalists, who argue they involve large amounts of energy, produce greenhouse gases and can be harm marine organisms.

What's next?

The graphene-oxide breakthrough has been welcomed by scientists in the field as a promising development, but some are cautious of the next steps. "The selective separation of water molecules from ions by physical restriction of interlayer spacing opens the door to the synthesis of inexpensive membranes for desalination," wrote Ram Devanathan of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in an accompanying news-and-views article in the journal. More work still needs to be done to test the durability of the barriers and to confirm the membrane is resistant to "fouling by organics, salt and biological material," he said. Water treatment with membranes that separate water molecules from ions, pathogens and pollutants has been proposed as an energy-efficient solution to the freshwater crisis, Devanathan added. "The ultimate goal is to create a filtration device that will produce potable water from seawater or waste water with minimal energy input."

Graphene sieve could make seawater drinkable - CNN.com

See also:

How oceans can solve our freshwater crisis
Mon May 26, 2014 - There are 16,000 desalination plants on the planet, and their numbers are rising; A huge desalination plant is under construction in Carlsbad, California; When completed it will be the largest such facility in the Western Hemisphere; Water expert: Ocean water is "a seemingly inexhaustible supply"

It's been a cruel irony for ancient mariners and any thirsty person who has ever gazed upon a sparkling blue ocean: Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. But imagine a coastal city of the future, say in 2035. Along with basic infrastructure such as a port, roads, sewer lines and an electrical grid, it's increasingly likely this city by the sea will contain a newer feature.

A desalination plant.

Thanks to improved technology, turning ocean water into freshwater is becoming more economically feasible. And a looming global water crisis may make it crucial to the planet's future. The United Nations predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will suffer water shortages, especially in the developing world and the parched Middle East. Scientists say climate change is making the problem worse. Even in the United States, demand for water in drought-ravaged California and the desert Southwest is outpacing supply. This is why a huge desalination plant is under construction in Carlsbad, California, some 30 miles north of San Diego. When completed in 2016, it will be the largest such facility in the Western Hemisphere and create 50 million gallons of freshwater a day.
"Whenever a drought exacerbates freshwater supplies in California, people tend to look toward the ocean for an answer," said Jennifer Bowles, executive director of the California-based Water Education Foundation. "It is, after all, a seemingly inexhaustible supply."

A growing trend

Most desalination technology follows one of two methods: distillation through thermal energy or the use of membranes to filter salt from water.
In the distillation process, saltwater is heated to produce water vapor, which is then condensed and collected as freshwater. The other method employs reverse osmosis to pump seawater through semi-permeable membranes -- paper-like filters with microscopic holes -- that trap the salt while allowing freshwater molecules to pass through. The remaining salty water is then pumped back into the ocean. Officials at the Carlsbad plant say they can covert two gallons of seawater into one gallon of freshwater by filtering out 99.9% of the salt. There are some 16,000 desalination plants on the planet, and their numbers are rising. The amount of desalted water produced around the world has more than tripled since 2000, according to the Center for Inland Desalination Systems at the University of Texas at El Paso. "Desalination is growing in arid regions," said Tom Davis, director of the center. "We are making progress in the USA, but the countries around the Persian Gulf are way ahead in the use of desalination, primarily because they have no alternative supplies of freshwater."

Israel, in an arid region with a coastline on the Mediterranean, meets half its freshwater needs through desalination. Australia, Algeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also rely heavily on the ocean for their municipal water. In the United States, desalination projects are concentrated in coastal states such as California, Florida and Texas.
Some environmentalists are wary of desalination, which consumes large amounts of energy, produces greenhouse gases and kills vital marine organisms that are sucked into intake pipes. But proponents believe the technology offers a long-term, sustainable solution to the globe's water shortages. One entrepreneur has even built an experimental solar desalination plant in California's San Joaquin Valley. "When other freshwater sources are depleted, desalination will be our best choice," said Davis, a UTEP professor of engineering.

California dreaming

 

[there4eyeM]

It's pretty obvious about solar power, desalination, and sane consumption. Still, so many people express attitudes that reveal oblivion.